Tell Me a Story
by manyissues101
Summary: -Motherhoodverse, in which the parents of Riku, Sora, and Kairi learn a little more than they bargained for. One-shots, a variety of genres- II. Grounded: One day she'll tell him why she named him Riku.
1. Asleep: Sora & Lilly

"Tell me a story."

Sora blinks at his mother, curled in her favorite chair by the window, looking up at him. He remembers being a child, footsie pajamas flopping against the ground with every step, begging the same thing of her. But she doesn't mean a story about little boys running off to be pirates (though he has a few of those), she means stories from the past three years. This is how she watches him live his life, through secondhand snippets, and comments here and there, from conversations that everyone else has had with her son. There is a whole three years of him that she doesn't know.

"Are you sure?" Sora needs to know. He's got happy stories, sure, happy stories about flying through the air and swinging across vines and learning to breathe underwater, but he's also got those stories that aren't very happy at all, and while he won't share those with her, she needs to know that they're there. She needs to know what she's getting herself into.

Lilly nods, mutely; she's aware of the bad parts of her son's past. In fact, the first time that she saw the majority of his scars (and that one really bad scorched line across his shoulder) she almost didn't want to let him out of the house.

"Well...did I ever tell you what happened the second year I was gone?"

Something that made me forget you, she thinks, but there are stories that _she_ keeps to herself, and that is one of them.

"Not really, no."

He begins his story as if it's going to be epic, but it falls dramatically short. Something about not remembering, and waking up in a pod...

Lilly interrupts him, for the first time, to say, "Wait. You slept for a whole year?"

He nods.

"Why does that not surprise me?"

0-FIN-0

Because I'm bored, and mourning the loss of my computer, which may never turn on again. This broken laptop pales in comparison.

Just a little idea I had; it didn't turn out as wonderfully as I planned, which probably has something to do with a sudden lack of Windows Media Player. *sigh*

But I plan on posting here again, with as many Motherhood drabbles as I can crank out. Which is a staggering number, believe it or not.

Note: If you've never read my story 'Motherhood', I'd suggest it to you now--it's how I introduced the trio's mothers to the fandom. But it isn't required to understand what's going on here.


	2. Grounded: Riku & Kaito

He doesn't want to tell her, and so it makes it all the more painful that she already knows. Were his pain just oblivious to her they could try and return to their ways, to try and go on living the life that they forgot they once had. But she sees it in him, and it hangs like a curtain between them. He wants to pull it aside, but he's afraid that she won't like what's behind it. That she won't like the person that the darkness made him to be. But Riku is tired of hiding and tired of lying and he doesn't think that he can even forgive himself unless he gets the whole story out there.

That's why, when his mother speaks, his heart pounds with painful uncertainty.

They're watching the waves together, because they can and because she almost begged him to sit outside with her. He doesn't count the stars like Sora, instead he just turns his gaze away from the night sky and watches the water rise and fall, rise and fall, like the whole world is breathing.

"Riku?"

He glances over at his mother, trying to avoid eye contact, but it seems he doesn't have to worry; she's not watching him, for once. But she must feel his eyes on her, because she's content to continue once she's got his attention. "Can I ask you…to tell me something?" She looks over at him quickly, her eyes locking onto his, and Riku suddenly wants to smirk as he realizes how smart his mother is, but frown once he realizes that she carefully calculates her every move around him these days. At any rate, she's trapped him with her eye contact, and she knows that he won't shy away from it.

"I…I don't know. There's a lot of things that you won't want to hear," he replies hesitantly, almost embarrassed. Kaito smiles because it's the closest she's seen him act to a teenage boy in a long while, too scared to tell his mom that he wanted more out of life than she could give him. But Kaito already knows all of this, because she is his mother, and long before the darkness shaped him, he was what she made him to be.

One day she'll tell him why she decided to name him Riku, something that means strong, land, grounded. Every name has a story behind it, and maybe one day she'll tell him about his own story. She's got one of her own—Kaito, a boys name, one that means ocean and sake dipper—and it's her name that she blames for all of the days that she spent lying half in the tide, just enough liquid fire to make the sky fuzzy as it chased her longing back to the pit of her stomach. She'll tell him about her own days as a teenager that just wanted to roam wild and free, a girl who just wanted to float away across the ocean or fly into the sky so far and so high that she couldn't tell the difference between them. How she spent her days looking for something that she couldn't quite find, trapped between the desire to let her dreams take her as far away as they could and the love of a man who pulled her back down to the earth. He was about as opposite of her as anyone could be, and yet he met her stubbornness and raised his determination, holding her close enough to make her feel like she was flying without ever trying to leave the ground.

This is why she named him Riku. She didn't want him to be like her, the ocean dipper, who felt the breeze like a stirring whisper, rousing him to be something more than he already was. She wanted him to be his father, so serious, so realistic, so loving that he kept her put. But early on in her boy's life she saw that he was exactly what she didn't want him to become, always questioning, always wondering, looking past the sky with a fervor for something that he didn't know. She prayed that her son could make peace with the unsatisfaction for life that would grow to plague him, because there was nowhere to run and nothing good in loathing your life because of it. She wanted her little land boy to stay grounded.

The funny thing was that it's what he did for her. She lost her husband early on, and with him he took the weights around her ankles and the chains that bound her to her home. Kaito thought that grief would be enough to hollow her out inside and make her light enough to just float into the sky, but then she felt the heaviness around her heart that was her son, and she knew that she could never, would never, leave him.

This was not a feeling that went both ways.

The wind called his name and the sunset sent him visions. But his restlessness was different—it was wanderlust, a craving for adventure and a need to break the monotony of his life. And then it took him away, and when it brought him back he was no longer her son.

Her stranger child, she called him in her head, when she was alone and there was no one but her own thoughts to judge her. He was taller and broader, with a physique that suggested some serious physical activity, and a pair of eyes that suggested something locked away inside. He'd always worn his hair long—she liked it better that way, and so it always was—but she'd always been able to see his face. Now she wondered what he hid behind those bangs. He was strangely graceful, his movements so silent and fluid that sometimes she watches him walk and can't believe that something with his bulk could possibly move like that. It's…inhuman, otherworldly, she thought to herself, swallowing back guilt. Her stranger child didn't smile at her, or reciprocate her teasing, or even actively engage in conversation. Her stranger child kept more secrets from her than he tells her truths, and the way that he mindlessly went through his day makes her feel hollow inside again, just the way she felt when he disappeared.

She won't complain, however, because he's making progress. He's not quite Riku (he never will be, she thinks) but he's becoming less and less of a stranger, and with each day that passes the burdens that weigh him down seem to ease by a fraction. Tonight he's sitting on the back porch with her, looking out into the distance, watching the waves hit the stars and drown the entire night sky.

And because she is free spirit herself, content to throw her problems to the wind and sea and see where they take her, she does not ask why he left, but what he found there.

And he tells her.


End file.
